November 14, 2005

That owl has been disturbing me all day. It brought back a childhood memory. When I was 5 years old, the movie "Rodan" came out. I saw ads for it on TV and could not understand if the fact that it was in a movie meant that it wasn't real. I asked some people, and no one would give me a straight answer, for some reason. Back then it was much more common to tease young children. Or maybe it was just a Delaware thing. Anyway, I was terrified of Rodan for a long time.

Ooo, Rodan was the creepiest of the Japanese monster movies. The scenes in the mines in particular, with the crazy miner, and the giant grub worms. You should be happy they didn't take you to see it!

Yeah, yeah, some of you guys are gonna say, "But Icepick, isn't War of the Gargantuas creepier?" And the answer is no. Yes, the action scens in WotG were quite disturbing, but the overall effect in Rodan is much more so.

Of course, all of this kaiju talk has me thinking of grad school (Okay, math guys are wierd. Think we don't know that?), and makes me want ot stay up all night watching Ran again. Damn stupid job....

Well of course Godzilla beats Rodan on a good day: Godzilla is King of the Monsters, afterall. But the question under discussion was the creepiness of Rodan the movie. And Rodan has additional significance as the first color kaiju film.

And in further defense of Rodan, the monster, when Godzilla DID need help against King Ghidorah, who'd he go to for help? That's right, Rodan. And Mothra. But really, Mothra has Godzilla's number so that was only natural.

Knoxgirl, don't fret. Rodan is real. In fact, there's a breeding program in place to make sure we don't run out. You never know when Godzilla's gonna need help fighting off alien monsters, and Gamera's too unreliable. (The turtle has a drug habit, but you didn't here that from me.)

The movie Rodan is about the public discovery of the breeding program. It's basically a biopic of the first (known) breeding pair. There were some ... unfortunate events associated with that program becoming public, however. But you can't make omelets without breaking some eggs. Some really big-assed eggs.

When I saw an ad for 'The Creature Walks among Us' (the second sequel to 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon'), I thought it was a news report. Decades later the movie came out on DVD and I approached it with trepidation, only to have it make no impression whatever.

To be unmoved by a revisit to things which once affected me strongly is more disconcerting than the physical effects of time. However, occasionally the childhood experience is reinforced when I discern new features that I did not notice originally.